As soon as libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson rolls up to the restaurant in Scottsdale, Ariz., his driver, Tom Mahon, jumps out of his seat and hands me a Sharpie. Mahon says that as a libertarian, he wants me to sign the campaign vehicle wherever I like and write whatever I like. So just below Johnson’s head, I write, “I didn’t do this,” and draw an arrow toward the mustache, beard and marijuana cigarette already on Johnson’s face. Being a true libertarian means driving around in a van with graffiti on your face.

Johnson isn’t one of those incapable, extremist, wacky, millionaire third-party candidates. He is extremist: he wants to abolish the IRS, legalize marijuana and allow the private sector to create competing currencies. Sure, he’s a little wacky: he’s finished 75 triathlons, climbed Mount Everest eight weeks after breaking his leg in a skiing accident and crashed while paragliding. And yeah, he’s a millionaire: in 1999 he got $10 million for a handyman business he started his junior year of college and built into a 1,000-employee construction firm.

But he’s capable. As a Republican, he won two terms as governor of New Mexico with no prior political experience, eliminating the deficit and creating a surplus before leaving office in 2003 with high approval ratings—which he recovered after dipping 30 points when he talked about drug legalization. “Ron Paul is a social conservative,” he says. “I’m not. Ron Paul would talk about legalizing marijuana, but he’s never smoked marijuana.”

For months, as Johnson ran in the Republican presidential primary, the GOP ignored him as best it could, hoping he’d just go away. Then he did, leaving the Republicans to join the Libertarians. When I ran into him at the GOP convention in Tampa, Johnson looked like a man far removed from his former party, blocks from the convention center, standing on a street corner in front of a Hooters doing interviews.

The GOP isn’t ignoring him anymore. Now that Johnson is threatening to siphon votes from Mitt Romney in close elections in Colorado and Nevada (he’s also on the ballot in 46 other states and Washington, D.C.), Republicans are doing whatever they can to limit his appeal. Michigan party officials kept him off the ballot because he filed his paperwork three minutes late. In Pennsylvania, the GOP hired a private detective who went to canvassers’ homes and flashed his old FBI badge before questioning the signatures they collected, a lawyer for Johnson’s campaign alleged. The state GOP and the investigator denied doing anything improper. (On Oct. 10 a judge decided that Johnson will be on the Pennsylvania ballot.) The experience has left Johnson, 59, alienated from some of his old comrades—which, it turns out, he doesn’t mind at all. “Going to Republican events, as I did a zillion times, I listened to Republican candidates do their spiel. I cringed at a lot of what they said, whether it was abortion, the terrorist threat, the homophobia, the ‘illegal immigrant is the source of all our problems’—man, that stuff made me crazy. The kook element of the Libertarians gets up, and I don’t cringe.”

Johnson lacks the passion of fellow Libertarian Ron Paul, but he projects far more humanity. Born in Minot, N.D., Johnson was a George McGovern–supporting anti–Vietnam War pot smoker who went to high school and college in New Mexico and started his empire as a door-to-door handyman. He still has a Midwesterner’s accent and decency: he says things like “holy cow” and “Katie, bar the door.” His running mate, Jim Gray, a former California Superior Court judge whom Johnson met at a drug-legalization conference, says Johnson often seems to lack ego. “He said to me, ‘If, during the campaign, you have different ideas than I do, feel free to say that publicly.'”

Johnson is running a tiny operation, flying commercial and carrying his luggage to avoid bag-checking fees. He’s spent a lot of his limited cash (he had $29,173 left at the end of September) suing to get on the ballot and doesn’t have a lot left to run his campaign, much less buy TV ads. “Fifty people a day are calling our office, offering to do anything for free. And we don’t have the resources to tap into them,” he says.

Not that anyone could really organize Johnson’s “coalition” anyway. After our dinner, a couple hundred people gather on a lawn at Arizona State University, which is pretty impressive, since it’s 100°F. The crowd: tatted-up students with marijuana-legalization shirts, young parents with little kids wearing Ron Paul shirts, crusty old men applauding wildly when warm-up speakers mention economist and austerity guru Friedrich Hayek, Constitution freaks with the Preamble on their shirts, guys selling cards with bits of silver who want to get us back to hard currency, a few Latinos who feel strongly about the Dream Act, antiwar activists in peace T-shirts. Libertarianism is the smallest big tent in the world.

Johnson isn’t the strongest speaker. After being introduced by Barry Goldwater Jr.—who recently endorsed Mitt Romney—Johnson opens with “So” and then talks about how even a homeless person could solve the country’s problems, but, unlike a homeless person, he is qualified. He says many things that no winning presidential politician has ever said: “I didn’t create one single new job in New Mexico. The private sector creates jobs!” followed shortly by a boast about how many liberty torches the ACLU has awarded him. It feels less like he’s running for President than for student president of the University of Chicago.

As he leaves the stage and heads to the airport so he can fly to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, he reflects on his chances. “I’m planning to exceed expectations,” he says with a smile. “Which are zero.”

I voted for this man--I really would have wanted Ron Paul. basically, I could not bear to support Romney and am neither impressed or a true believer of the milk toast that is Obama. So I voted for Johnson--who was it really a vote against? I'm glad Romney did not win, --Republicans should not EVER be rewareded for their asinine, racist behavior of the past 4 years and if they act the same for the next 4, they should all be drummed out of office.

Just voted for Gary Johnson. All the polls and talking heads are saying this election is too close to call, that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are tied. Let's see if our vote is what makes the difference.

When circus elephants are young, their trainers secure a heavy chain tightly around their ankles to keep them under control. As the elephant strains against the chain and continually fails, the elephant soon begins to give up and learns to be helpless. Later on, their trainers replace the heavy chain with a very small chain, one that the elephant could easily break. However, the elephant has been trained to not even try.The elephant believes that they are helpless and can never be free again. The elephant is the largest and most powerful land animal on the planet, yet they are be subdued by their own minds.

The same can be said of the American people. We have been conditioned for so long by our present two party system, that we have given up our will to be free, or we pretend that we are truly free. When you mention peace, non-interventionism, free trade, ending the police state and following the Constitution, the average citizen will laugh at you.

When you mention voting for someone else, other than the Big Two party candidates, they will tell you that "you have to vote for one, to beat the other". Sadly, neither of the Big Two parties are willing to break that small thin chain that binds us all.

A 5%+ voting block for Gary Johnson adds a third major party, not obligated to the financial power elite, who fund both of the Two Big parties. Break those shackles and chains and free the Constitution from tyranny. Vote Gary Johnson... Vote for the "5% Solution"

The Republicans thought that if they stomped on Ron Paul and his supporters, they would be finished with those pesky libertarians -WRONG! Their ungracious treatment of Ron Paul has created an even bigger problem for them in the general election. States like Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire where Ron Paul had strong support are now "must win" swing states with Gary Johnson on the ballot, and actively wooing those Paulistas that the GOP willfully orphaned.

I'm voting for Gary Johnson (even though I know he wont win) because Ron Paul isn't on the ballot. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama might as well be the same person. Both of them supported, defended and encouraged the massive taxpayer funded bank bailouts. Romney says he wants to get rid of it, but Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. Barack Obama has a kill list, and the NDAA which gives him the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without due process, a policy which Mitt Romney has stated he supports. Barack Obama SAYS he won't use the provision that allows him to "disappear" citizens, but he's already extra-judicially assassinated 2 American citizens, one of them a 16 year old Denver born kid. Mitt Romney avoids every question about this policy, so it's clear to me where he stands on this issue. Mitt Romney wants to involve us in yet another war, this time against Iran, a policy which Barack Obama is seemingly reluctant pursue. Both of them support the endless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars. I'm sick of war, I'm sick of paying with my tax dollars for drone bombs that don't differentiate between child and terrorist, I'm sick to death of the TSA groping my mother, my kids and myself every time we want to go somewhere. ENOUGH!This is not a protest vote. This is a vote to ensure that the Libertarian party reaches the 5% threshold in order to obtain major party status and $90 million dollars for the next presidential campaign. I'm tired of having to choose between the lesser of two evils. I want some real change for a change.

I live in the 1/50 states that has only obama and romney on the ballot. No third party and no write ins. My vote would go to Gary Johnson. As it stands, I will not vote for either obama or romney. I suggest that others in oklahoma that don't want to vote for either evil leave their ballot untouched on the presidential part but go ahead and vote on the other issues and remember to vote out anyone on the ok supreme court that made this decision (to keep everyone else off the ballot).

"He is extremist: he wants to abolish the IRS, legalize marijuana and allow the private sector to create competing currencies."

Really, that makes him extreme? Then I guess Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and the rest of our founders were just wacky extremists when they founded a nation that had no income tax, no marijuana prohibition, and no prohibition against competing currencies. In fact, every president up until Woodrow Wilson would be an extremist under these standards.

To be clear, Johnson's not an extremist, he is a classical liberal just like Jefferson.

haha - I feel this article gave Gary Johnson more personality than he has. I like Ron Paul's conviction. I'm writing him in. but I hope GJ gets at least 1% nationally. It's frustrating they don't have the infrastructure to take advantage of volunteers. like a call from home system would have been nice.

There has been huge amounts of discrimination & censorship up until just recently by the super PAC's. Their entire mission is not only to attack each other but to attack all third party candidates. The Libertarians are in legal battles, from a PAC representative impersonating a federal agent to suing the Presidential Debate Commission for refusing Gary Johnson entrance after meeting polling requirements before the last debate. (How many polls did you see with Gary Johnson as an option?) Presidential Candidate Jill Stein of the Green Party was arrested by Police for
trying to enter the Presidential debate... Here's the Kicker.........A
Russian news agency was the first to posted the story & arrest video online 4
hours after it happened, very few American news companies would even talk about it! Facebook censored me, even though I violate no profanity or defamation rules. I had to file a FTC (Federal Trade Commission) complaint which is ongoing... You don't silence a Free citizen in a Free country! The world "Spoiler" in itself creates & promotes discrimination, as an American I strive everyday to be a better person and treat people as I would like to be treated! To use and promote such a negative attitude from the two party duopoly doesn't surprise me, they never play fair! I have met Gary Johnson twice in Indianapolis & Fairland, In. Both times a very sincere person who believes in a lot of things most Americans believe in. He's a very honest, hard working man with a heck of a lot better track record in politics and social skills than either of the two major parties! Gary Johnson has my vote because he is REAL!

So I've been following Gary Johnson since before he (as the first) announced his candidacy. Where the F'ing HELL was TIME when Gary was marginalized right out of the debates? Where the F'ing HELL were you when he needed you, when the country needed you, when people were shouting from the rooftops during the idiotic clown car weekly change-out of dubious (at best) candidates that they wanted, needed and deserved more choices?? Where the F'ing HELL were you when it was obvious Mitt Romney of the 'cutting screaming classmate's hair off, impersonating a police officer, avoiding the draft by trying to get the French to give up wine BS missionary work' was being forced down our throats? How dare you mention him now? HE AND WE NEEDED YOU A YEAR AGO!!!

I'm voting for Gary Johnson. Anyone with a couple of spare minutes of time can easily look further into how both Obama and Romney in reality differ little to nothing in regards to what they want to do for this country. Mitt Romney lies and changes his stance on every issue he can depending on the audience he's speaking to. Obama lied during his first election and ended up not fulfilling even half of what he said he would attempt to accomplish. Obama said he would allow medical marijuana patients their medicine and try to put an end to the raids but instead under his presidency more raids have been done than under any other president leaving dying patients without their medicine. A vote for Romney or Obama is a real wasted vote.

I hate the term 3rd Party candidate. There are numerous party's. I would really consider voting for them. I am a life long Democrat but I really align with many of the beliefs of the Green Party. In reality I could give them my vote as the state I live will go strongly to Romney as I live in Tea Party Central. I do support the Pres. as well though so he will get my vote. As said though, if every party was on every ballot, the Green Party would probably get my vote.

I say we follow Iceland's lead and dissolve everything up to now. Is it going to hurt? Yes. Does anybody remember having growing pains? This is a relatively young country - a toddler perhaps. We are growing and we need to get new clothes and advance to books with bigger words. I'll vote for Johnson, and for those who say my vote is wasted, so be it. You are a human with opinions, like me, and you'll die someday, like me. I'll vote for the right to complain, as that's what we as a nation are very good at doing.

Funny how voting Johnson is considered "wasting your vote" when voting for the two mainstream candidates will produce almost identical results, which will be no different from that past decade or so years. Neither has an grand ideas other than platitudes and more of the same. And more government intervention in our lives whether it is limiting our healthcare options or telling us who we can marry. Johnson (or other 3rd party) is the vote that counts. When the mainstreams see they lose their election because the green party took too many democrat votes or the libertarians took too many republican votes, maybe then they will get a wake up call.

As far as the republican complaining about Johnson, tough. They sowed the seeds with their appalling treatment and maneuvering to try to marginalize both Johnson and Paul.

We are not moving in the right direction in terms of rights, civil liberties, the war on drugs, our position in the world, and our role at the policing nation. We DO NOT need 1000 bases around the world. 1000.

We do not need to continue a war that we can't win. Didn't we learn this once before?

we cannot continue on a course where the government uses drones on its' citizens. We are the Government. This is not what I want. My senators didn't vote - but 86 percent did. If we don' t hire a President to reign this in it will be too late.

There are sick people, living longer, more comfortable lives because of marijuana. We are grown ups. We should have the right. If we legalize like liquor, then we can more closely monitor it, and educate about it.

Barack Obama is not the person I elected. He is not hope and transparency. The systems are broken, but so entangled and entrenched in duplicity and manipulation, those in power fear a power shift. But if we don' t vote for a shift, we'll be stuck. Iceland did this, America can do the same.

If you are "voting your party" don't waste your vote if you don't believe in your candidate, if you have doubts. If you believe adults should have the right to do what they wish, if you believe we must end the war now. Then vote that way. It only takes 30 out of every 200 democrats and 30 our of every 200 republicans to swing their vote to Gary Johnson alongside his trend of 6 - 10 percent. If your candidate loses your vote is wasted anyways, but if you vote belief it is not.

Gary Johnson gets it - he's been divorced, single parenting, mountain climbing, governing, business building, and his running mate is the only veteran in the consideration for higher office, and he was in the peace corps. He's been on world wide committees to legalize drugs. These men will bring the reality back to Washington D.C.

I like Mr. Johnson's position on a number of issues. I have a problem with both Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney, so I've cast my vote for Mr. Johnson. I like the combination of Fiscal conservative, Social liberal, and governing experience (as governor of New Mexico); hope he can garner enough votes that the libertarians are at least included in the 2016 presidential debates...

@bigdowner I cast mine for Johnson after struggling with the idea of it somehow allowing for a Romney victory. After watching the third party debates to figure out who the heck this Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson people were that he political quizzes had actually said were stronger matches to my personal philosophies, I realized that even if Obama won with my less than enthusiastic support, and fullfilled my best expectations of what he would accomplish, it still \ paled in comparison to what might be possible under someone that was not a lesser of two evils type of choice. While Stein and Anderson did capture my heart for a moment, my head realized how very far left they leaned and how someone a bit more grounded would probably be the wiser pick, and besides it wasn't as if Johnson hadn't done the same in rousting me into applause at his replies. For a moment I toyed with the idea of backing Anderson at this, my first exposure to the man, but Gary had been my interest from the fact that he was the Libertarian Party nom, which was the party that I discovered when I followed Mike Gravel from the DNC Primaries off to greener pastures. All things considered, and given my own idealism and tendency towards getting carried away by the promise over the practical, I settled back down and was very solid in my affinity for Johnson's politics, and even his personality. it appeared that he was the best pick of the bunch for the job. How could I live with myself being disappointed at any policy change the next term without having supported the one I wanted when it mattered? I figured that it wouldn't matter if I did take away my vote from the DEM side, since I am in Cali, we had some padding there, and if it did cost us the victory, well then the end of the world would come shortly thereafter to put me out of my misery anyways. so I really was better off facing it now that later. And at least this way, if the fit does hit the shan, and Romney folks try to dish out some flak as an I told you so, I can STILL say, "Hey, don't look at me, I voted for JOHNSON!" and deflate that stupid assumption that just because the DEM way isn't working that the GOP way must therefore have been the proper choice of savior! No matter what happens, nobody can shove MY face in it this time! LOL! No regrets on my wasted vote for Johnson 2012. It feels pretty darn good just to stand up and cast my vote in defiance of the FEAR factor. I was not ruled by the "safety" or "strategic" anti-other guy vote for second worst. I was brave enough to choose the best for myself and my country. Hopefully my example will embolden some of the sheeple to follow suit next time too. I'm ready to fire it up for 2016 if Johnson wants to go again...

@wetroofwoof I think it is so obnoxious and selfish of everyone to write in Ron Paul. Ron Paul stepped down. He has said write in is a waste of time. He has said Gary is doing a wonderful job. The Liberty voters who think they are making a statement by writing in Ron Paul, when there is an electable candidate on the ballots, are being very narrow minded, and clearly lacked understanding of the message Ron Paul was sending. It was not about Ron Paul. It was about liberty and freedom. Lame.

@dawnowens better late than never. At least most of the comments on here are pro Gary Johnson, unlike most comments on news.yahoo. I love to mention Gary Johnson's name on yahoo because that's the only way they will mention it. Just like the media in oklahoma barely mentions that ok. supreme court ruled in Sept.2012 no third party on ballot, nor write-ins. Oklahoma is pro-gun, however, and open-carry just went into effect a few days ago.

@Smurfe in a libertarian platform, the freedom and competition makes for a perfect environment to successfully develope green energy etc....i find it impossible to ignore such a socially accepting and fiscally fierce party.

@Smurfe I don't know where you live - but for you to be aligned with the Green party, but vote democrat shows you're not voting beliefs - you are voting party, and not voting for America.

I voted for Obama in 2008. In 2009 he extended the patriot act. He kept going after medical marijuana. Sick people don't need the stress. He signed the National Defense Authorization Act - HE SIGNED IT! He took the right to have indefinite detention of all of us. The NDAA violates about five constitutional rights minimum/

He has been unable to end the war. And though he says 2014 - why wait? Why do we keep letting our soldiers die. Why do we continue to allow our military to develop technology under the guise of war, that is then going to be brought back and used to add to the police state.

Obama has been worse on wiretapping, email reading and spying. And say what you want about Bush. He gave up golf when America when to War. Obama hasn't missed a game.

This man has great speaking skill, but lacks substance, and understanding of who we the people are. And Romney is worse.

IF you believe in what Jill Stein says - vote that way - vote for America. Not for a party.

He's been in the news; it's just that most people aren't paying attention because he's not one of the two major-party candidates. The saying, "Anyone can become President in America" is no longer true. In order to become President in America, you have to belong to, and adhere to the policies of, one of the only two parties allowed to be in the major-parties' debates unless a certain private committee decides another party's candidate can also be on them. THAT'S why other party candidates have such a hard time being heard of. It's not because there aren't enough supporters out there; they're just not allowed to be known. The two-party system has a stranglehold on our elections, and that's unconstitutional.

@RobertZipp I agree that we should wipe the slate clean and start over. I think we should keep the original Constitution there, and just add some more specific wording to it, so that nonsense like the elastic clause - "necessary and proper" clause - isn't used so that people and politicians can do whatever the heck they want.

@RobertZipp You know, I've sometimes thought if things continue to slide downhill with regards to the erosion of civil liberties and national finances that scrubbing everything off and hitting the reset button may be the only way to save us.

@nikotesla01 Don't forget that keeping one of the two "mainstream" candidates means continuing the two (four? six?) overseas wars that are responsible for thousands of deaths now, regular drone strikes that kill 50 innocents for every purported "terrorist, and are an absolute sinkhole for increasing the national debt.Not that its any better here, where the federal government has used drones to prosecute nonviolent offenders, eliminated the right to free assembly in the vicinity of a presidential candidate (HR 347), threatened every US citizen with the possibility of indefinite detention without trial (NDAA 2012), and the president has signed an illegal executive order giving him the power to take control of all US labor and capital (NDRP executive order)

@CharleneBurton Yeah, and it doesn't help that the private committed is spearheaded (and was created) by the left and right and it's in their interest to keep out any party that would disrupt their sucking America dry.

@wetroofwoof@jazzwitherspoon@MichaelRichardson Write-ins aren't listed on the ballot. That's why they're called "write in": you have to take a pen and write their name on a blank line, and check the box next to the blank line. Most states do not count individual write-in votes unless the candidate has submitted a declaration of candidacy. Ron Paul has done no such thing in any state. Even if he had, when the votes are tabulated, they will be listed as "Write In" and then a percentage (probably somewhere around 0.1%), without being broken out into individual candidates. The only time individual candidates are counted is if "Write In" as a whole has enough votes to win.

Ron Paul first got me interested in politics. so I feel like I have an obligation to him. even though Gary Johnson has a similar ideology I don't have any attachment to him. It's only one vote. I told my friends to consider Johnson over Obama.

@MichaelRichardson@wetroofwoof Seriously, why would you literally throw your vote away on someone who is not even running any longer.I love Ron Paul for bringing the real issues into the spotlight, but his stance on immigration is xenophobic. I am much happier to cast a vote for Gary Johnson. He's a better speaker, too.